


52Hertz Wailord

by Mangerine



Category: Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: Found by chance; Missed by pure stupidity, Future Fic, Long-lost twin AU, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:47:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25701583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mangerine/pseuds/Mangerine
Summary: "So she stays with her dad, her mother and younger brother moved to Galar," Hop repeats, "You both also like that weird sour berry juice that's just about discontinued here because of how vile it is."Victor nods and smiles, sipping from his paper cup."Unbelievable right?""Oh, it's unbelievable alright," Hop replies slowly, "Vic, I think you just found your twin.”orChampion Victor gets a concussion, engaged, and reunited with his long lost twin
Relationships: Hop/Masaru | Victor, Mary | Marnie/Yuuri | Gloria, background Dande | Leon/Kibana | Raihan
Comments: 6
Kudos: 69





	52Hertz Wailord

**Author's Note:**

> ※ Welcome to the future, where Victor, Hop, Marnie and Gloria are a quarter century old!

It all begins when Champion Victor defends his title for the tenth year in a row, and promptly concusses himself.

Even from the nosebleeds Hop can see his boyfriend ready to celebrate in gold. It’s the way his brows didn’t furrow in focus, or the way he’ll lift his mantle like a magician, sweeping away his infuriating grin and returning with a spray-painted seriousness. 

It’s the way he sees his opponent reveal Sharpedo and sends out the one fire pokémon he has.

With his age and status, Victor’s commitment to type-matching taunting is exasperating. Lucky he can’t see how Hop is smiling fondly.

At least Coalossal didn’t have quite as many fingers to make rude gestures with. Inteleon certainly couldn’t be trusted not to gloat politely.

Wave against shore, a terrible crashing sound of nature – Sharpedo shoots forwards, jaws wide and blooming, white teeth unfurled like daisy petals. It makes contact with a sickly crunch against Coalossal’s massive arm, twitching like a leech, pulsing as it _chews_ , attempting to amputate rock from mountain.

With a steadiness that belied his fiery type, Coalossal stills, watching the agitated form of the Sharpedo against his left arm. He turns to Victor and waits yet again for his trainer to gather himself behind his mantle.

Victor nods.

The shadow of a hand hovering over is enough for Sharpedo to disengage, shooting back in escape with warm rocks on its tongue. Its impatience is just what Coalossal was waiting for.

Sharpedo slams back into a rock wall, Coalossal’s arm lowered to form a barrier. It swivels, snout aimed at the freedom past Coalossal’s chewed off limb. He darts forth, and so does Coalossal.

So far forward that the shark pokémon learns what happens when you chew at ankles of volcanoes.

From beneath the pile of coal, Sharpedo is returned to his trainer in a beam. Coalossal stumbles to stand to a roaring crowd and his proud trainer.

Hop sinks back into his stadium seat, the spectators around him jumping up and cheering, blocking his view of the wide fields and screens.

He still sees Victor in the darkness, sees how he’ll walk first to his pokémon, sees how he shares his win before he claims it, sees him walk and thank his opponent like an afterthought. Just another one of Victor’s quirks, his simple hierarchy of affection – family at the pyramid’s tip, and everything else below.

Small as a closet, the exclusive space in his heart still lay vacant for years. An only child with a single mother, arriving at a new land with shaky hope and little else.

That was a long time ago. Now Victor has him, and he has Victor.

From where the stadium lights are aimed, where Victor is, a sound of collapse is heard.

The fizzle of gasps, then a distressed announcement for paramedics.

Hop jumps and pushes aside the curtain after curtain of wailing humans.

Center field, among thrown roses and fallen coal, beside his pokémon as Hop expected, is Victor.

He’s carried out of sight on a stretcher, confetti blanketing him in gold.

x

Victor disagrees with the law on many topics.

Galar could do more for its underprivileged, firstly, without relying on the Champion’s charitable donations each year. The nation’s environmental laws were pathetic, for another, and the biodiversity was degrading beyond repair without conservation efforts. The cost of living kept its incline and younger trainers couldn’t afford to start their journey as early as they did; Victor certainly made his displeasure known about that more than once.

Lastly, Victor’s little pyramid of affection wasn’t law, and so far as the hospital was concerned, Hop wasn’t family.

Hop tried his luck at visitation rights, just once. He calls his brother the moment he steps out the hospital.

“Lee-”

“I’m seeing you on five different channels right now, Hop. Not a good time.”

The cameras aren’t aimed at him, but his brother is sensitive about cameras after years of DSLR snouts rushed at him everywhere he went. Hop strolls out of frame.

“I just want to make sure his Coalossal is ok, they won’t let me take temporary foster rights.”

“The medical staff at the League are more than capable,” Leon starts in that even, media-trained tone Hop hates, “Sonia needs more help back at the lab, surely.”

“Raihan got to be with Charizard when _you_ were in the ICU-”

Leon turns an aggravated gaze to his rotom where his little brother is staring back. The same dandelion gold in his eyes, the same irritating persistence of the wildflower, weeded for a day and sprouted anew the next.

Without a word, Leon raises the back of his left hand to the camera, where Hop can spot and roll his eyes at the prominent gold band on his brother’s ring finger.

“Don’t pull this again, Lee,” Hop pleads, “Charizard won’t even let you go shower alone, even my Cinderace won’t start eating if I don’t, you know how fire pokémon are-”

“Coalossal is a Fire _and_ Rock type, the last I checked,”

Leon turns from his work to catch his brother’s appalled face on screen. He shrugs.

“I’m not wrong.”

Just sleazy with his technicalities of all things.

“I’m telling mum,” Hop says.

He ends the call and dials for Raihan. When the call connects, his gentle brother-in-law just smiles sheepishly, turning the camera to show his brother’s smug visage at the far office table.

Another lunch date. Insufferable.

Lee **always** holds grudges, it’s impressive how someone with a 53-inch bustline couldn’t find the space in his heart for forgiveness.

He sulks about how fire starters were clearly superior, which Hop would agree with, until he goes on about water starters, and how unfair entering legendary pokémon into tournaments was…

Raihan pops by the lab a day later with an elaborate gift basket, which Sonia happily helps herself to. She upheaves a magnificent tray of slab chocolate, a mallet with a head shaped like a fist tied to it with a ribbon – likely a souvenir from the fighting gym at Stow-on-Side.

Where Lee was visiting for work.

Shifting aside tinsel and crêpe paper, rolling among expensive berries wrapped in foam netting, was a peculiarly round fruit – red and white, complete with a label stuck to it, similarly wrapped in foam. With a shining smile, Raihan watches as Hop’s eyes finally widen in realization, reaching for the disguised pokéball and unwrapping it.

He knows before peering into the clear plastic that it’s Coalossal, Victor’s Coalossal. He’s stuck a holographic sticker of the pokémon on the red shell as usual, because his pokémon have tiffs over which ball is theirs.

Coalossal’s embers shine when he recognizes Hop, before he shies away again, sullen.

“Thank Lee for me?” Hop asks, the way he used to ask Raihan to reach the cookie jar their mother hid above the fridge.

_He should do it himself_ , Raihan thinks with a soft smile, _just like Leon should have come himself_.

He hears it in his father’s voice: Hammerlocke blood is noble; Hammerlocke ties are true. Raihan himself only had distant cousins for siblings, none who believed in greeting cards, lovingly stampeding his gym and home every holiday season. Brothers, of all, should be closer still.

_Just growing pains,_ Raihan assures himself, _him and Lee both._

“Of course,” he replies.

x

Victor doesn’t wake for ten days.

His mother arrives so suddenly that doctors fret and fuss the whole walk over how to break the news to her. She outstrides them and bursts into the room, slamming her hands on the bars by Victor’s bed and loudly reciting his full legal name.

He jolts awake like a successful necromancy, eyes wide and searching for where his alarm clock would be in his childhood bedroom.

“Can you tell me your name?” A doctor rushes over, unbuckling a pocket flashlight.

“Yes, Masaru, can you tell the doctor your name?” She asks, tossing aside Victor’s arm, IV-drip and all, to drop her large handbag beside her son. “Do you know what it means in Hoenn?”

“…to win,” Victor mumbles, as a gloved hand forces his eye wide open and a flashlight shines right into it.

“What kind of winner-”

“I need you to look at my finger,” the doctor urges, slowly moving his hand in a horizontal line, “keep tracking it with your eyes-”

“Yes, listen to the doctor, maybe you’ll learn something from him,” she continues, planting herself into a bedside chair and sweeping her long black hair into a ponytail.

“How old are you?” The doctor asks.

“25,” Victor answers.

“And how old are _you_?” she demands. The doctor startles for a brief moment.

“32, ma’am,” the doctor replies, unsure, “I really must ask that you-”

“Married?” she demands.

“Yes,” he squeaks.

“You see?” she concludes, turning to Victor, who can’t see much beyond the haze of gauze and the fog of newly-ended concussion.

“I try so hard to keep my hair black,” she begins, pulling out a bag of fruit and a peeler from her handbag, “you keep turning it white,”

In an instant she’s shoved a slice of apple under his oxygen mask. The doctor stares at the “NO SOLID FOOD” order by the foot of his bed, before deciding to turn and leave.

The weather outside is gloomy as usual. Groggy in bed, his mother’s wrinkles are smoothed to youth. Her perfume is an apparition of the past, a presence he’d left in childhood.

If he turned, like he used to, to the bedside table, would there be the cup of sour juice she promised to help the medication go down? If he slept, lashes singed from his burning skin, would she stay and scare him into resting?

All they had of the juice was what his mother could bring with her. Galar didn’t sell it and the label on the large bottle long faded before Victor learnt how to read the characters.

To realize a dream is to disrupt fantasy. Victor knows with certainty that once seated upright, he’d be tall enough to see every strand of white in his mother’s ponytail. If he stood by her, taller still.

He is Champion, for so long as he is victorious; he is his aging mother’s son, for so long as the fates are kind.

“Why cry?” She scolds, snatching up tissues and pressing them to his face, blotting his tears before they fall.

“Was an accident,” Victor wheezes, his apology, excuse and reason for every fever, sniffle, cut and bruise he collected as a child.

He lifts his right hand to reach for her left. A scant decade of rest is too little to soften her hands. Her skin is leather from the years she’s tended to fields of dining tables, reaping tips and a salary as gloomy as Galar’s climate. A dent remains on her ring finger like a newly undone collar.

She had a doctorate back in Hoenn.

A life without Victor in Galar might have found her Wyndon Hospital with a scalpel in hand instead of a fruit peeler. Her hands could be happily ringless, not worn like barb wire against the sleaze that patronized her workplace; all visible symptoms of rabies with no treatment but a barstool to the face.

All that to raise a son. Their hands have eroded from humanity - His own training has left his palms calloused, scaled like his Inteleon. For her sacrifice she is rewarded with a troublesome trophy that nearly perishes before her.

He would have left a golden legacy and his mother grieving empty-handed. An inglorious victory.

“Masaru,” she rasps, fingers swaying as she to comb his hair, “Just be careful. I just want you to be careful,”

Not safe. That is beyond her capacity now.

“I can’t watch you forever,” she nags. “I am not young anymore,” she fusses. She sighs. She frowns.

“If only I brought your sister along, then I-”

Victor turns to her with wide eyes and she in turn sweeps her wide eyes to the window. In the direction of Hoenn.

She breathes through her lips in measured sips of air, as though breath would substitute for words. Shock sits in his stomach like the sea parting. Tucked to sleep in the seabed is a message bottle.

A part of him has known, for a long, long time.

x

The trip to Hoenn isn’t for fresh air.

For one, Hoenn wasn’t the muggy forest it was 30 years ago. Like any other city, there wasn’t much fresh air to be found.

For another, Victor left Wyndon Hospital on his Corviknight, hospital bracelet where his Dynamax band would be, arriving at his apartment late that evening.

He dismounts his Corviknight without a flight helmet on.

“I’m thinking of going to Hoenn,” Victor says, leaning on Corviknight, disregarding any lesson he might have learnt from not giving his large pokémon a safety berth, “for fresh air.”

The night is warm and Hop is comfortable standing at his front door, watching his tired boyfriend find his words in the dark.

“I’m coming too,” Hop says, when even the warm night chills from Victor’s silence.

The night is sure to be sleepless, and as Victor stumbles to the shower, Hop puts the kettle to boil. When he checks Victor’s pokémon for hunger and answers, he finds them fed and just as confused. Victor’s jeans have spots of dried blood, so Hop pulls them out the laundry pile.

A black, velvet box drops out.

Victor’s done with his shower and they make arrangements as Hop’s Rotom plays a sweet song softly. In the shared silence between them, the melody drops from the speakers to the carpet like flowers wilting to bear fruit.

To Hop, the language barrier is transparent, the singer’s melancholic smile translating without a single understood word. Her voice is a tireless sleeping, a waking dream that continues into a dreaming waking, a milky green rose, a dead leaf fully pink.

Work pauses as Hop turns to save the song. In their first full conversation of the night, Victor translates the song – a girl who’s searching for someone she sees only in her dreams.

“When she wakes she’s alone; every time she sees this person, she knows it’s a dream,” Victor explains, entering his card details for the plane tickets, “so she wants to destroy all dreaming. The next time she meets this person-”

“She’ll know they’re real,” Hop completes.

Hop scrolls through her work, all her songs bearing an impressive number of streams. Distracted from his hotel search to read her profile, Hop discovers that she’s based in Hoenn, and brightening when he sees a performance scheduled for their trip, only to deflate when he sees that it’s sold out.

“She seems pretty confident that her dream person is looking for her,” Victor continues, “’ _I’ll rip away the night sky and they, the moon,’_ she says.”

Hop smiles, comforted. “What does her name translate to? I want to recommend her to Sonia.”

He turns the screen and Victor laughs when he sees her profile.

“Loser.”

x

Their journey begins like a funeral procession. Their flight is late at night, under the relative privacy of economy seats. As they sleep in the uncomfortable chairs Hop can’t help but grieve their upcoming marriage.

They’d both agreed to procrastinate till they were thirty, though the long nights coaxing Coalossal to eat through his own worry made staying single a profound anxiety.

Childhood’s simplicity went unappreciated till revoked. Victor had broken bones before, at ages 7, 10 and 12. It was no question that Hop would have been by him, and Victor’s pokémon happily entrusted to him (if he had any then).

Turning 25 meant recording Victor’s unintelligible monologues on painkillers required certification, a mandate that wielded marriage as a threat. He wondered if his mother was forcing a smile in the old photos – to think he thought his grandmother unromantic, when she said she married for the right to own land.

Victor fallen in gold haunts him. Victor gaunt at his door haunts him.

Hop is going to marry for fear.

“Hoenn is beautiful at night,” Victor says, when privacy is theirs in a tall hotel room.

Hop looks out the window from his seat on the bed and casts his eyes down again. Victor can have his predilections; Hop won’t argue taste with a man who ate curry blocks like chocolate as a late-night snack.

Hoenn at night is complicated – bright, painful neon like a rainbow met trouble in a dark alley, smashed and left for dead. A child’s scream heard out of sight – half-likely excitement, half-likely danger.

Discomfort soaks into Hop’s skin as Victor kneels to look him in the eye. He just has to fight the rising nausea long enough to say yes.

“Hop, I know the past month has been hard,”

“Please just promise me you’ll be careful,” Hop sighs, “I just want you to be more careful,”

“I will,” Victor says, “I’m sorry for scaring you,”

“Coalossal wouldn’t eat for days,” Hop continues, “he wouldn’t sleep, his temperature kept dropping-”

Hop’s Dynamax band is looser on his wrist than Victor remembers. His glasses can’t hide the fatigue in his eyes. Hop reaches to meet Victor’s hand on his knee, cold and trembling.

“You’re not just the Champion, Vic,” Hop says, “you have a family waiting for you,”

“I don’t know that,” Vic replies quietly. They are alone in the room. Still Victor whispers like he’s hunted.

“I had to get away,” Victor says, “she kept it from me so long, for no reason-”

“Victor?” Hop whispers.

“I have a sister, a twin sister, and she doesn’t know about me.”

x

“Funny thing,” her father says as the store’s automated chime finishes greeting him. “I saw some guy with this WX48 series brass-corner travel bagpack just now,” he gestures lasciviously, tracing the curves of a phantom vixen, “I used to have one just like it, same colour and everything,”

Not much of the inane noise he makes registers in her head these days, but this makes her flinch in hope.

“Maybe it _is_ yours,” Yuuri replies, eyes fixed on her father, “vintage is in right now.”

“No chance, your mum and I got it mixed in the divorce. She took it with her to Galar, damn it all,”

“With my little brother,” Yuuri reminds, “whose papers you _lost_?”

Her father raises two hands in defeat and swivels, running to the stairs.

“Did you at least get a look at the person with the bag?” Yuuri calls, striding after the squirming man, “Did he look like me?”

“No, his hair was silver, just some punk,” her dad waves off.

“My hair is brown and **_green_** _,_ ” she seethes, “Did you see his face?”

“No-oo,” comes the reply, “but that cuboid carrier series from that series was _beautiful_ , pristine, even.”

“Unbelievable,” Yuuri huffs, stomping behind the cash register again. Two more days of patience and she could leave the dusty record shop and her irresponsible father for a week.

She resorts to her self-soothing ritual on her laptop, checking her bank account, double-checking that the streaming site’s deposit was received. She toggles to a screenshot of her boarding pass, and then to the chat room with her girlfriend.

No time difference, but Marnie still isn’t online. Typical.

The last step of her ritual is staring at the brochure for the music festival she’s about to perform at – Every year the concert attracts swarms of migrating Wailords and attendees to Spikemuth Lighthouse.

Just two more days. She’ll be the closest she’s ever been to her little brother, and he doesn’t even know how badly she’s praying for a miracle.

x

“She said the bag was identifiable?”

“A genuine leather shoulder bag with handstitched detailing across the top. Cigar coloured, with deep cacao accents on the base and front panel. Gold metal closure, and two smaller metal details on the front, also gold.” Victor recites.

“What about your father’s address?” Hop asks, yellowed paperwork spread across the pressed hotel sheets.

“If she’s lucky, the deepest ring of hell’.” Victor quotes.

Hop looks up in exasperation.

“Dad attended a concert instead of our birth,” Victor shrugs, returning to his search on his laptop.

Hop puts his face in his hands. It was a rushed marriage and a poor man’s divorce. There weren’t any legal documents, and all photos with Victor’s father had been keyed, burnt, torn or simply cut out.

“You know I’m not trying to find her in five days,” Victor says, picking up his birth certificate, the yellowed document pristine in its laminated case. He’d made a splendid recovery since their first night at Hoenn, perfectly tranquil with the knowledge that he had a twin sister out in the wide world.

“The hospital,” Hop gasps, “Do you know which hospital you were born in? They might have her records.”

Victor laughs, handing Hop the document. He scans the page - from name, to weight, to time of birth. Finally, printed at the faded footer of the document was the address. It was familiar; nearby perhaps.

Hop grabs the hotel notepad to make a note, only to find the address already printed beneath the hotel’s logo.

A work week isn’t enough to find her after all, but it’s plenty for them to talk. Victor proposes on day 4, and Hop shoots him down.

“Without your sister?” Hop snaps the box shut and slides it back across the table.

Their server is frozen a step away with their pudding. Victor calmly pockets the ring.

“We may never find her,” Victor replies.

“She’ll be my sister in a few years, won’t she?” Hop mumbles, staring at the tablecloth, “I want to keep looking.”

“Ok,” Victor replies, watching his fiancé’s reddening face.

_(“That’s them,” the server loudly whispers as the couple pay and leave without a backwards glance, “that man just got rejected and asked for dessert.”_

_  
“Ok,” Yuuri replies, printing a duplicate receipt for accounts, “my leave starts this Friday, by the way.”)_

x

She has a photo.

Her brother’s hair swoops right instead of left like hers. That’s all the difference she can tell.

All her life is an empty hallway, a tunneling space that, no matter how warmly furnished, would not be a home. Round the end of each hall was the edge of a huge photograph she could barely see.

She knows his name is Masaru, the God of Tenacity and Victory. Just like the hundred-thousands more in their area code alone. There’s something like five thousand Victors in Galar, more still in recent years because their Champion _had_ to share a name with her missing brother.

She wonders if he’s as frustrated, if he’s looking for a Jane Doe in another land. Her name is just as common: Yuuri, Goddess of Legacy and Glory, the other Honourable Guardian in Hoenn myth.

No true Glory achieved without Victory over adversity; No true Victory endures without Glorious purpose.

Not a single triumph in her life.

She’s nauseous from not sleeping the night before. The last bottle of sour juice at the airport kiosk is a godsend.

Which is why she’s not letting go of it. The silver-haired stranger who grabbed it at the same time just has to deal.

“Ok,” the stranger says in an accent, “I’m not going to fight over a drink-”

He locks his elbow anyway, and so does Yuuri.

“-but this drink is kind of special to me. They don’t sell it in in my country-”

“Sorry to hear,” Yuuri interrupts with a dazzling smile, “it’s so popular here for _nausea,_ so it’s kind of special to me too.”

The stranger shifts his shoes away and smiles back.

“I’ve heard it’s also great for headaches,” the jerk replies, pointing to a scar on his left temple, “and wouldn’t you believe it, these post-concussion stitches are-”

“Fire-Water-Grass with me,” Yuuri snaps. “Best of three, let’s go.”

They raise their free hands in unison.

“Fire, Water-”

“Grass!”

Closed fists. Two water droplets. Tie.

“Fire, Water-”

Two fingers out. A pair of grassblades. Tie again.

“Fire-”

“You two have three seconds to leave,” the kiosk owner growls, “before I bring out a little Fire, Water and Grass of my own.” There’s a novelty plastic tombstone on the counter. Carved where the name would go is “PROBLEM CUSTOMERS”.

“I’ll pay,” the gentleman says quickly, “split 50/50, deal?”

“Paper cups cost extra,” the owner grunts.

x

Hop nods as he listens, his appetite flagging as Victor recounts the uncanny meeting.

"So she stays with her dad, her mother and younger brother moved to Galar," Hop repeats, "You both also like that weird sour berry juice that's just about discontinued _here_ because of how vile it is."

Victor nods and smiles, sipping from his paper cup.

"Unbelievable right?"

"Oh, it's unbelievable alright," Hop replies slowly, "Vic, I think you just found your twin.”

Victor takes a bite from his sandwich; it makes a revulsive squelch.

"Our whole family has black hair.”

"Are you really saying that to me with silver hair right now?" Hop strains against his patience.

Victor falls silent.

"Did you get her name at least?" Hop tries.

"...Gloria..." Victor answers.

"Does that translate to anything? " Hop asks, desperate.

Victor stares at the pile of souvenir cellphone charms in the paper bag by him – the twin Honourable Guardians, Masaru and Yuuri.

"Which flight is she on," Hop demands.

"Flight XV438, at boarding gate C4, is now open, will all passengers-"

Victor jumps and begins sprinting.

x

She finds her seat and just about pours the nausea medication down with her half of the sour juice. Tucking her mother’s old bag under the seat in front of hers, she wonders vacantly if her father remembered to open the shop on time.

Commotion catches her eye out the small window. Past the large airport windows, she thinks she sees a late passenger struggling against security. He twists past the guards with such strength that his large bag nearly sends one flying over a row of seats.

She giggles at the cartoonish scene, watching the man bolt nearer and nearer, leaving the guards behind. As he closes distance, she realizes in delight it’s Victor, from the kiosk.

He can’t see her, but she waves at him, just a small farewell. Cheers to strange coincidences, she supposes, he seemed nice enough, if a little knocked in the head.

The plane jerks into motion and she closes her eyes.

Yuuri wakes, nearly 40 000 feet in the air with the taste of sour fruit in her mouth, a memory of a rightward swoop of silver hair. Her mother’s bag is a heavy weight on her sneakers, and her father’s bag was a…

She puts a hand over her mouth as the sour juice loses its effectiveness.

x

As far as first impressions go, thrusting your bag at your girlfriend before racing to the washroom to upchuck airplane lunch wasn’t making its way into romance flicks anytime soon.

“I gave fair warning,” Gloria says, emerging from the washroom, defeated.

“That ya did,” Marnie nods, “promise I won’t squeeze too hard if you let me hug ya.”

Gloria smiles, sinking into the embrace.

“The guy behind that potted plant is my big bro, by the way,” Marnie whispers, “came to make sure you weren’t some old dodgy creep,”

“I see him,” Gloria whispers back, “sweet of him,”

“That’s a way of lookin’ at it, sure,” Marnie agrees, pulling away, “he thinks we’re just friends by the way.”

 _“_ Got it,” Gloria whispers back, as Piers glares from behind a ficus.

“C’mon,” Marnie says, angling Gloria’s bag out of reach, “take it easy, let’s get you settled before we go, alright?”

They crowd begins and ends at the arrival hall, the muggy heat dissipating as the escalator climbs upwards. From above, Gloria notices wires threading through the herd, then cameras, the fuzzy shapes of microphones.

“What’s the event?” Gloria asks, once the din lowers enough for Marnie to hear her.

“Beats me,” Marnie shrugs, “maybe they’re looking for Gloria, International Superstar,”

x

Their luggage slips away below Victor’s hovering hand and continues its merry way down the carousel. Hop leaves Victor to the bad news he’s reading on his Rotom, moving to retrieve the suitcase.

He turns to see Victor releasing Inteleon, his long tail immediately hooping around his father’s ankles in concern.

“It’s a mess outside,” Victor says, “I’ll go first, wait a bit before you go.”

It seems even a last-minute decision to take an earlier flight didn’t escape the media’s attention.

That even, trained voice. Inteleon loosens his tail and straightens to his full height – taking position beside Champion Victor.

The two rollicking in the souvenir shop and being a general menace to the population of Hoenn is still in clear memory. Just the night before the two were playing “Guess the Tea”, a game that earned Inteleon more snacks than Victor right answers.

Either way, Victor’s returned to Galar without his family. The Inteleon with dark, scanning eyes by him is simply the Champion’s bodyguard, not the sly glutton that Victor raised and loved.

Loud footfalls hit the tiles behind them. Victor and Inteleon turn to Cinderace’s determined eyes.

“We’re going together,” Hop says.

x

There’s loud cheering from the floor below. Marnie stands from her seat and pokes her head over the second floor bannister.

“Ready to go see some Wailords?” She asks when she sits back down, “No one’s there yet, you can feed them without anyone finding out,”

Gloria nods, ignoring the din below and packing up excitedly.

x

The cameras match their fast pace across the thick glass panes like children chasing fishes at the aquarium.

The doors barely slide open before the microphones are in their faces. Though Inteleon dwarfs the reporters, the field evens when Victor spots a Machamp hogging a spot with two free, muscular hands. In his other arms are a camera, and a long microphone.

Victor searches for the exit and begins pushing.

“Professor Hop, what can you tell us about your relationship with Champi-”

“Champion Victor, is it true that-”

Behind him is Hop, a firm hand on his back. Victor wants to reach for him.

“Are you able to discuss the objective of your trip togeth-”

“Victor,”

“Several sources speculate that your injury a month back was a staged event, would you be willing to comment-”

“Victor!”

“Professor-”

“No comment. No comment. Let us through please-”

“VICTOR!”

Breaking the agreed media-approved distance is Hop, shaking him from behind. He’s pointing at a far upper exit, an automated door opening into sunlight.

“It’s her,” Victor breathes, “let me through, let me **through** -”

The doors are closing behind her.

“No!” Victor cries. With a final shove, a sliver of space opens in the crowd, one leading to a tall pillar that sprouted up to the tallest floor of the airport atrium.

“Inteleon!” He orders, as his loyal starter immediately shoots from his side and up the pillar. The empty space by Victor is immediately filled by the assault of more cameras,

Victor jostles still, trying to track his starter as his balance fails. A wobble, a click; his luggage catches on the edge of a loose tile and he stumbles. When he regains balance, even Inteleon is out of sight, the door shutting behind a flicker of blue.

The questions stop, only the clicking of cameras like blinking eyes as he turns and realizes what he’s dropped-

A small black velvet box. Right between Hop and himself.

x

“Try this,” Marnie says, offering Gloria a Masterball.

“Get in,” Gloria orders, tapping the ball on Inteleon’s snout.

“Stubborn bugger,” Gloria scolds, “why’d you follow me if you already have a trainer?”

The strange Inteleon that deemed it fit to trail after them just keeps his tail coiled around her right ankle, gesturing at the city centre.  
  


“Are you hungry?” Gloria asks, shoving a slice of fruit in the pokémon’s mouth before it answers, “Will this help?”

Inteleon chews, offended, desperately turning to Marnie for understanding.

“Wyndon, he says” Marnie interprets, “he wants us to follow him,”

“After the concert,” Gloria says, “I’m thinking of changing my set list a little.”

Marnie watches as Gloria walks off backstage with the stubborn Inteleon in tow. Just another instance when pixels overlaid with reality. Gloria always seemed to prepare twenty steps in advance.

She turns to Wyndon, wondering.

x

“Thanks for the save, Piers,” Victor says, rinsing the Tamato juice out his hair before it stained red, “Thanks for the save, Skunktank,” he repeats, when the pokémon pads over.

Hop arrives with a long receipt and an armful of bottled juice, himself thankfully shielded from the worst of Skunktank’s evasive spray behind Victor. They’re safer in the wild area.

Piers waves, nonchalant and a safe distance away. “I suppose congratulations are in order?” he asks, friendliness genuine and awkward all at once, “Or about to be?”

“No,” Victor blubbers from under the steady pour of Tomato juice, “I have to find someone else first.”

Piers looks more uncomfortable yet, glancing between the couple and his Skunktank.

“Well, you do that,” he encourages cautiously, chewing his words over before speaking, “you three love how you want to love, don’t let anyone tell you different.”

“His long-lost twin,” Hop corrects immediately, and a shot of relief runs across Pier’s face.

“Either way, I think you best come with me. We have band tees back at Spikemuth,” Piers says, “and a 360° deodorant spray booth, all the essentials,”

“The Wailord concert!” Victor exclaims, enthusiasm t-boned by Tamato juice entering his windpipe, “I always wanted to g—hk—”

“Big fan of water pokémon aren’t you?” Piers remarks, endlessly entertained by the younger man.

“Who’s playing?” Hop asks, pouring the last of the Tamato juice over his engagement ring.

“Some old Team Yell Classics, Marnie,” Piers says proudly, “Marnie’s girlfriend,” he adds, less proudly.

x

The falling sun is punishing by the sea. For a moment Marnie thinks the glare was interfering with her eyes.

“Where’s Dream Destroyer?” Marnie asks, searching the files in Gloria’s thumbdrive.

“I’m not playing it,” Gloria answers simply. Already the sea has began a louder splashing, the Wailords waking in evening.

“But that’s your brother’s song,” Marnie says, watching as Gloria goes about her routine of setting up her electone and adjusting the height of the seat. Where ‘Dream Destroyer’ was in Gloria’s discussed setlist, a file titled simply “3” replaced it.

“That’s what you came here for,” Marnie reminds hesitantly, pointing up like Gloria was scouring the ground for the sun, forgetting herself.

Gloria looks up, her face the pitch black of a notehead, backlit by the setting sun.

“No, I came here to feed the Wailords,” Gloria replies, “and to see you, and have an amazing time tonight.”

Wailords begin their unrhythmic splashing in the ocean with verve. Marnie tells her once the music plays the Wailords take their lead, shaking the sea in harmony. There are a million marvels in Galar as it is.

“That song was for me,” Gloria admits, “I couldn’t keep going knowing I was the only one searching for him,”

Another dimension lost through the screen was the way Gloria breathed, calming herself by breathing to bar rests, 2 counts at a time.

“I met him, I think I met him in Hoenn,” she says when she’s ready, her voice a flimsy hand over a geyser of emotion.

“He likes the same drink I do, and we even argued over a bottle of it,”

Gloria shakes her head, smiling in disbelief, “He had our father’s bag, and he was chasing my flight, I saw right before I…”

Marnie moves to hold her.

“He was chasing me. He was looking for me,” Gloria sobs, “after all this time I know he’s also-”

She sniffs, blotting her tears away quickly.

“I don’t need that song anymore,” Gloria declares, “I’ll write another for him. Tonight’s dedicated to- to someone else, the Wailords, the moon, anything else.”

The best thing of being by her – Marnie can hold Gloria as long as she needs.

x

“Vic, Vic, look at the set list!”

Victor turns instinctively, the carefully painted X swiping far to his left jaw. Piers sighs, reaching for the makeup remover.

“Loser is performing!” Hop cheers, holding up the flyer, “the date was for _here_ , not in Hoenn!”

A month’s a long time for Victor to miss how enthusiasm looked on Hop. A large commemorative Tee drapes on him, and his face paint is already on. Some Team Yell members even remembered him, looping their various chains and spiked bracelets on him.

An outfit to blend into the crowd, so long as they didn’t look down and see his office slacks and smart loafers.

“Done,” Piers says, wiping the stray trail of paint and holding up a mirror.

“Where’s the pink stripe?” Victor asks, confused, staring at his reflection

“Are you gonna sit still long enough?” Piers asks, reaching for a small pink pot with a brush.

“I’ve got about a minute-half left of sitting in me,”

Piers lowers the small pot, and picks a wide, dripping brush out a bucket, sweeping it across Victor’s face.

“Yes!” Victor cheers, blinking through pink lashes at his reflection, “Can you sign my shirt?”

“I’m retired,” Piers protests weakly as Victor shoves a silver marker in his hand and turns around, “alright, alright, stop _jumping,_ ”

“Hop! HOP! I got an autograph!” Victor yells as Piers flourishes his name across his shoulders. The Champion had two settings, it seemed, quiet or still.

“You’ll get paint in your mouth,” Piers chides, before he gets an armful of Champion, a cheek of pink paint, and the kicked-up glitter of Victor running out backstage with the silver marker.

“Must be something in the water in Postwick,” Piers sighs, turning to the dark curtains behind his makeup counter. A sluggish Inteleon plods out from the rehearsal area, defeated and dehydrated.

“Your face is looking pretty bare there, friend,” Piers remarks, dragging the pink brush down the Inteleon’s head and putting the disco back in his discombobulated expression.

“Let’s get you some snacks,” Piers says, “the night’s barely begun!”

X

Years of Wooloo farming mixed with good old Postwick hospitality often ended up with very polite hand-to-hand grappling after dinner.

“I **said** I’ll do the dishes, mum!” Leon argues, gently forcing his mother to the living room couch, “go-oouf, go **rest.”**

“You and Raihan are guests, you **both** go rest!” his mother argues in return, putting up a surprising fight against her taller son.

“Dishes are done!” Raihan announces in a record-time of ten minutes, with a tired and soapy Charizard behind him.

“Good work, partner,” Leon thanks with a kiss, “I swear she could outbutt a Dubwool on a good day,”

“I’m retired,” she complains, walking to the television, “not dead!”

“Aunt Carnation,” Leon begs, “please tell her she’s retired,”

“She’ll be in denial till she has grandchildren,” Carnation laughs, pulling her old friend and neighbour to sit by her on the couch, “Viola doesn’t know what retired means,”

“You can’t retire from being a mother,” Viola protests.

“Oh, you can, believe me,” Carnation says.

“Well, as soon I have to stop watching over Hop…” Leon mutters, avoiding eye contact with his husband. This conversation was the last thing he wanted to have with his mother.

“Hop!” Viola exclaims, reaching for the remote, “Turn the news on!”

“No news,” Leon intercepts, grabbing the remote and flinging it to Carnation.

“Just the talk shows then, he never told me he and Victor were-”

“No talk shows,” Carnation insists, “I hear enough about my son as it is. Did you know his hair is silver now? Silver!”

Carnation flips through a few channels in irritation. “If he wanted silver hair he should just have his own children,” she huffs, landing on a live broadcast by Spikemuth.

“I think he dyed it for a collab with the Fairy Gym,” Raihan says, “they’ve got a new line of vegan leather, made from Ballonlea fungi I think.”

“The things they come up with these days,” Carnation remarks, idly watching the television, “Back in the day I saved up for this gorgeous bag—”

_“—be—autiful weather tonight as the crowd gathers for the annual—"_

“—wanted to stitch my initials on it, but it didn’t quite go, so—”

_“—exclusive backstage look at the performers tonight, getting ready for—”_

“—like a U instead of a C?”

“Yes! But somehow it worked, I just wish I could show you, it was—”

_“—Our first international guest, “Loser””_

“Strange name,” Leon remarks.

“Pretty solid singer, Sonia told me about her—”

_“Hello Galar, nice to finally meet you, I’m Hoenn’s Loser, glad to be here—”_

“—a beautiful bag,” Carnation whispers, staring at the screen, the girl and her painted face, the bag in her hand.

x

“Lights!”

The spotlight searches for a fugitive, before landing far right, the hill by the lighthouse, far from the stage in the shadows.

“Cameras!”

The concert screens black out, reappearing with a slowly focusing image of Piers, shocked and lost. One hand on a cone of fish and chips, the other negotiating a battered fish with a cantankerous Morpeko.

“Action!”

The stage floods the pier with colour, the audience, painted or not, blink. As realization mounts, so does their volume. Pier’s shocked face fades from screen, transitioning slowly to photographs of a younger him, mic in hand and the dark ocean behind him. Photo after photo, a singing Piers growing, until the final photo fades into live footage of Marnie on stage.

It’s Marnie, the little sister he taught her first chords to, the shy girl whose smiling practice paid off, proud and brave on stage. Her smile is brilliant through her heavy makeup – or rather – his makeup.

In the two hours she’s hidden backstage, her long black hair had been streaked white and tied high into a ponytail. More still, to roaring cheers, Piers recognizes his old boots as she strides, his white jacket a perfect fit against her broad shoulders. 

She clears her voice.

“Get ready for a mosh pit with me and my party!” She barks, “Spikemuth, it’s time to rock!”

Marnie’s halfway through his favourite opening song before he realizes he’s been crying pink into his fish and chips.

Piers wobbles to his feet, stumbling down the hill where a few older Team Yell members were waiting.

Together, they push into the mosh pit.

“I don’t do encores, get it? Not songs, not move, not pokémon!”

A Wailord leaps in the distance, sending a wave through the concert goers. Between the sea and the audience was a length of pier guarded by a low gate, affectionately termed the "Splash Zone". They stayed clear to stay safe, not dry.

“Is there any still on my face?” Victor laughs, sweeping his wet bangs out his face. His fringe springs back up, stubborn as it ever was. Hop laughs, leaning close to Victor as rainbow lights dance across them in the dark.

“Not that I can see,” he shouts above the noise.

“Share yours with me,” Victor says, leaning near enough for their noses to touch.

Seawater between their drenched hands, Hop slips his hand easily out their grasp and pulls Victor close by his shirt, kissing him in the dark. A few friendly audiences slap their backs and cheer as they break apart, Hop laughing at how the paint splotched on Victor’s right cheek, leaving his left bare.

“You missed a little-”

“Where?” Victor says, leaning in again. His hand finds a way to Hop’s back, pulling him close.

Hop lifts his left hand to cradle Victor’s warm jaw, his ring catching rainbows. A cold gust blows by, sounding like a spray of a curious Wailord, but all that reaches Hop is the wild scent of salt and the lingering Tamato juice.

“I love you,” Hop says, loudly, safe in the screaming night. His gaze catches how Victor’s scar trails above his brow into his hair. “I love you,” he says again, louder still.

Victor kisses him, deep and warm. A cry from afar is all the warning before a cold wave covers them. They brace against each other, Hop throwing his arms over Victor’s shoulders, their drawn brows relaxing together. When they pull apart, Hop laughs as he finds the only intact spot of pink paint on Victor, right on his bottom lip.

“I love you t-”

“WHAT A CRASH!” Comes an announcement from behind. Victor chances a quick look before he reaches for Hop’s hand, slowly escaping to the edge of the crowd in waterlogged shoes.

A newscaster, with a huge camera aimed at the crowd. How long had they been there? Had they been spotted?

Hop presses a hand to his face and panics when he finds it clean. All the paint has washed off his face. His ring had been angled at the camera – if they-

“Hop,” Victor says, “It’s her,”

They turn to the dark stage, nothing in sight save for the waving glowsticks. Her voice is the only presence: floating and cold, frozen algae on water surface.

“I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” the darkness promises, “no one will hear us if we shout it,”

The lights come on, a round moon in the distance.

x

“The next song, “Protagonist” by Hoenn-based singer –”

“Carnation, are you alright?” Viola asks, “You’re looking faint, dear.”

“I’m fine, I must have been sitting too near the screens, blue light, you know,” Carnation replies, taking short, even breaths. 

“Now I _know_ you’ve actually studied in Hoenn for a while,” the host cheerfully continues on screen, “why don’t you tell us a little more about this song?”

“I can do better, I’ve actually been to a concert there, and later in the song—”

**“GLORIA!”**

“Wow, that’s an enthusiastic audience,” the host chuckles, “but yes, a fun little thing, everyone shouts the name of someone they—”

“ **GLORIA!”**

“No, no, no,” Carnation murmurs, “Masaru, oh, no,”

“Hop?” Viola gasps, transfixed on the screen.

“Rotom,” Raihan calls.

“Arceus,” Leon sighs.

X

She can barely rehearse this song without turning red in the privacy of her recording room. Something about it demanded it be performed; the more people the better.

Maybe the audience agrees, the way they sing louder and louder as the confession approaches. Just one more chorus – she sees the fear in everyone’s eyes.

“ _Every warm gaze of yours turns cold,”_ Gloria sings. Eyes closed, the strobe lights flicker like her cursor, every night after she bids Marnie goodnight.

“ _Because you don’t know, you have to know, I have to say it.”_ The moment she opens her eyes, her heart pounds.

“ _I’m grateful, my best friend; now, goodbye to that, because I adore you, I love you—”_

She holds the microphone to the crowd and the night is filled with screamed names of lucky people. Her heart is pounding still, seeing tears pour from faces, trembling hands forming microphones around red lips. The night is full of safe secrets; pure and loud.

“ _I’m grateful, my best friend,”_ Gloria repeats, walking into the core of the sun as she sings, “ _now goodbye to that, I must tell you—"_

_Marnie._

_So many nights she slept to find her brother, waking to lose him. The only joy the sun brought was behind the bright screen, where Marnie would be._

_“M-”_

She’s shoved forward from behind, her eyes shooting open to follow a blue arm pointing toward the sea—

“ _Masaru!”_

X

(“I gotta say, I thought it was gonna be your name,” Piers says, peeking out from backstage.

“So did I,” Marnie blinks, staring at the fallen microphone stand, “I best go handle this.”)

x

Closest to the sea is behind a short, locked gate. The wet planks in the splash zone are reserved seats for barnacles and crystals of sea salt. Crushed under Victor’s shoes, they’re the only reason he doesn’t slip once in his mad tear towards the stage.

His wet fringe is in his hair _again_ , and he can barely see for the dark. His own voice screaming his sister’s name sounds distant – loud out his chest, lost to the sea on his left, lost to the crowd on his right.

He knows this song, from the first night they landed in Hoenn and neither of them could sleep. 

“ _I’m grateful, my best friend,”_

“You’re seeing it live! Champion Victor himself-”

_“now, goodbye, because I adore you, I love you—”_

“Go, Vic, I have this!”

Victor runs without looking backwards, Hop’s voice behind him. Hop’s voice in the stands, where he thinks Victor can’t see him. Hop’s voice through the phone, Hop’s voice breaking the first night they ran to Hoenn. 

He swipes his arm across his face, scrubbing hot, angry tears from his face.

His arm returns to sight with a smear of deep red.

“Masaru!”

It’s her, running to him with Inteleon close behind. He can see it now, in the dark when he’s not fooled by colours. Like a moving old film, his sister, hair dark and features grainy. She leaps over the gate, rushing for him, hands outstretched.

“Gloria!”

The moon disappears in that moment, the night torn away as the floodlights catch the white of the breeching Wailord’s belly. It flies, so near Victor is sure it can feel his warmth. 

Noise is suspended as he runs through the blur, up to the sky, then higher still. Then, the shape of the plummeting pokémon is in his far vision, falling like a stage curtain.

“Inteleon, Safeguard!”

The wave throws Victor to the crowd, and as it recedes, tugs him by the shoulder, over the low gate, bit by bit, over the pier.

Water in his ears, he still hears his name from two homes.

He smiles as he hits the dark water.

x

“Why green hair?”

“Why did you abandon me?”

The two women glare at each other, arms folded outside the hospital room.

Inteleon sits a seat away from Hop, before keeling, resting his head in Hop’s lap. There’s still a stain of pink on his cheek, and Hop gently rubs it off the exhausted pokémon. Heavy footsteps arrive from the door, and Hop promptly hides his ringed finger under Inteleon’s head as his brothers stomps in.

“Don’t bother, I already saw it,” Leon says, arms folded. Hop slowly withdraws his hand from under the sleeping pokémon on his lap.

“Look, your brother is married to a professor-”

“That’s not what we’re talking about!”

“You’re engaged to the most irresponsible Champion in Galar’s history!” Leon blurts, dropping his hands to his side in exasperation, “Hop, Sonia is already fielding calls from the press – when will you learn to be more careful about-”

“Say that again about my brother, you –” A string of expletives dance from Gloria’s mouth.

“Autotranslating…” Rotom helpfully announces.

“Cancel, cancel, cancel,” Raihan rushes.

“Apologize,” Gloria demands, digging through her bag and producing three pokéballs.

“If you can make me,” Leon says, brushing his long coat aside to reach his holster.

“That’s the ex-Champion,” Carnation tuts, smacking her estranged daughter’s arm, “put it away before you embarrass yourself.”

“Alright,” Gloria says, swivelling, “ ** _You_ **take your pokémon out. Let’s discuss this outside.”

“Lee,” Hop starts, shifting Inteleon off his lap and standing. His brother turns away to Raihan, who circles him in an embrace.

“You know it’s going to be alright.”

“I **don’t,** ” Leon fumes, “that’s why we waited so long to-”

“It’s still bad, isn’t it?” Hop argues, “I know it is.”

His brother can lie, but Raihan’s face turns solemn. Hop knows why they had to marry in Hammerlocke gym of all places, and why the gym leaders had their holsters with them for the ceremony.

He remembers why his brother gave him Wooloo so young, making him promise not to stray too far from their home.

Beyond his nightmares, Leon knows that if Hop isn’t safe with two Champions of Galar with him, he isn’t safe anywhere.

“I just want you to be careful,” Leon says, quieter than Hop has ever heard him, “I just want you to be careful.”

“I promise,” Hop says, as his brother turns and pulls him into a hug, “I promise, Lee.”

“Gloria,” Carnation calls, “Yuuri,”

“It’s alright if I didn’t know,” Gloria snaps, “but why did you keep it from him?”

“And if you hated him? If he spent his whole life searching for someone who didn’t want him?” Carnation snaps back, “He was sick so much as a child, I couldn’t leave him with your father—”

“So was I,” Gloria replies, quietly.

Carnation keeps her eyes low. On Gloria’s far arm, she sees the familiar constellations of needle scars.

She turns, and without another word, walks out the ward.

x

Victor wakes to his name, though it sings like a lullaby.

“Hop?”

“Nope,” comes the reply.

“Mum?”

“Wrong again,” the person replies.

Victor lies silent for a moment, sounds and syllabus swimming in his head.

“Inteleon?”

“Why don’t you open your eyes?”

“S’too bright,”

“It’s the middle of night,”

Victor opens his eyes to blinding sunlight, the peak of Galar’s noon.

“Liar,” He whines, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Masaru, c’mon, I’ve waited long enough,”

There’s a warm hand in his, and he holds back tight.

_That’s right,_ he thinks, _there’s no more night._

“Five more minutes?” he asks, “You’ll stay?”

The person doesn’t answer, slipping her hand away. A soft tune begins, music without lyrics. It sounds like a nest being built, busy and quiet all at once. He hears the sea shifting, not the way he knows it to – but he hears footsteps on sand, something unearthed.

A message being read.

**Author's Note:**

>  _A berry berry berry beautiful fruit tisane. A deliciously rich infusion with a deep red colour and an intense berry aroma. A blissful treat for the senses._  
>  \- Very Berry Fruitea, a sour, sour tea brought to you by T2 tea
> 
> fuel my tea habit at https://ko-fi(.)com/mangerine


End file.
